Abstract

The harvesting of indigenous green vegetables (IGV) from the forests evolves side by side with commercial agriculture in Southern African rural communities. The IGV offers the opportunity for the improvement of livelihood, dietary supplement and resilience income to the rural poor communities. The emergence of IGV as a commodities in the commercial markets has the potential to secure livelihood of the most vulnerable segment of the population, especially the elderly, women, children from the effects of limited sources of income and dietary ailments. The paper is a secondary research (literature research) study that uses qualitative analytic method to analyze qualitative data. The research established that IGV contribute to the livelihood of rural sustainment farming communities. Such contribution is also acknowledged at the level of local government and manifest in local economic development policy framework that addresses poverty alleviation and improved public heath. It is recommended that human security policies in the developing countries should place emphasis on their specific and local traditional knowledge, indigenous green vegetables and livelihood practices to combat threat to human survival aspects of health, economic and food security.